In Chap­ter 108 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” Patch finds him­self in a dif­fi­cult phase of his life after the inci­dent at the Mer­chants Nation­al Bank. He sells his car and starts work­ing at dawn, haul­ing freight and load­ing frozen meat into trucks. Liv­ing in an old house, he pays cash upfront for a room, sens­ing that the elder­ly land­la­dy knows about his trou­bled past.

As Patch’s days become increas­ing­ly monot­o­nous and chal­leng­ing, he cre­ates a dark refuge for him­self. He metic­u­lous­ly blocks out the light from street­lamps, strip­ping his small room of dis­trac­tions until, with­out the chaos that sur­rounds him, he can final­ly close his eyes and find sleep. He acknowl­edges that his dreams about a par­tic­u­lar woman are becom­ing less fre­quent, a change that weighs on his mind.

Dur­ing his work, Patch encoun­ters sev­er­al girls who seem almost famil­iar, shar­ing an air that cap­ti­vates him. They are uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents who seem to tire of the typ­i­cal col­lege scene, briefly engag­ing with Patch before he slips away before dawn, feel­ing a lin­ger­ing sense of dis­ap­point­ment as he nav­i­gates their super­fi­cial con­nec­tions.

After a month of stalling in his search, he takes a job at a Glouces­ter mari­na, where he assists with lob­ster traps, clean­ing and mea­sur­ing them amidst the serene yet labo­ri­ous back­drop of the sea. He finds cama­raderie among the crew, par­tic­u­lar­ly with Skip, who guides him while they haul traps from the seabed. Although some crew mem­bers tease him about his eye patch, Patch embraces the play­ful jibes, feel­ing a sense of belong­ing amid the salty air and cama­raderie.

As night falls, Patch finds solace in soli­tude, opt­ing to remain on the boat with a beer while watch­ing the sun dip below the hori­zon. He even­tu­al­ly sleeps on a beach, using his shirt as a makeshift pil­low, feel­ing the exhaus­tion from his labors. Instead of eat­ing much, he sus­tains him­self on what lit­tle food Skip pro­vides, in prepa­ra­tion for the jour­ney that still lies ahead—a jour­ney towards the mem­o­ries of the woman who haunts his thoughts.